[This lecture was originally delivered in November 2021 as part of the Rising Tide Foundation Symposium ‘Earth’s Next Hundred Years’ the full list of lectures can be found here.] What Determines a “Limit to Growth”? This might seem like a rather ignorant or simplistic question to some. Many will think the answer rather obvious, that the Limit to Growth is determined by limited resources, of course!
Greatly depicted facts against globalist myths! Thank you so much for this. If someone can still argue against it - must one either be a complete fool or is being "enchanted" by the globalist's agenda with "benefit"?
Wow, major information density presented on the hot button third rail topic of the century! This could be a candidate for substack post of the year, and it's still only January. Got some reading to do now, but as Arnold said in the Terminator, I'll be back.
"So why don’t we have nuclear fusion yet?" Because, even the easiest fusion reaction to initiate – the combination of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, to form helium and an energetic neutron – requires a temperature of about 120 million C.
At $30,000 per gram, tritium is almost as precious as a diamond, but for fusion researchers the price is worth it. When tritium is combined at high temperatures with its sibling deuterium, the two gases can burn like the Sun.
But if ITER is ever completed, it will consume most of the world’s tritium, leaving little for reactors that come on line in 2055 or later, which also require tritium to jump start themselves.
Nor is more likely to be made in the future – quite the opposite. Today the world’s only commercial sources are the 19 Canada Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) nuclear reactors, each producing about half a kilogram a year as a waste product. Half of them will retire this decade.
This means the tritium stockpile of about 25 kilograms will peak by 2030 and begin a steady decline as it is sold off and decays.
Plan B would be to breed tritium, but for that you’d need an actual working fusion reactor. As mentioned in the preface above, ITER is a demonstration project to show that fusion is possible, but it won’t produce any power or breed more tritium even when it finally runs in 2035. Meanwhile it will be burning 1 kg of the precious 25 kg remaining. Fusion scientists wishing to fire up reactors after that may find that ITER already drank their milkshake.
Clery D (2022) Out of gas. A shortage of tritium fuel may leave fusion energy with an empty tank. Science 376.
Thank you Natasha, you have reminded me that I should add a paragraph on Helium-3 in this paper. The answer to this dilemma is that there should not be a reliance on tritium but rather Helium-3 for fusion when fusion comes online. Helium-3 is not found in large amounts on earth, however, it is found in ample supply on the moon, which is a focus of China. Helium-3 + Helium-3 = 2 Hydrogens + Helium-4 which generates about 12.9 MeV. Another reaction could be used using Deuterium + Helium-3 = one Hydrogen + Helium-4 which generates about 18.4 MeV. In both reactions the products are such that can be reused in the reaction unlike with Deuterium and Tritium and thus is much more self-sustaining. There is enough Helium-3 on the moon for fusion use on Earth for at least 1000 years. This is why China is making space travel a priority.
Thank you Cynthia. I too have researched nuclear electricity and have lobbied my (UK Green Party) parliamentary representative to support fission, especially the fast breeder route as it can burn up both nuclear bomb 'war-head' plutonium and conventional fission 'waste' - in the UK enough to electrify UK grids for hundreds of years – with the bonus of reducing conventional storage requirements before radiation decays to background levels down from c300,000 years to c300 years.
Some fusion projects propose using deuterium and helium-3 rather than tritium. But that’s very problematic too, they’ll need to run at far higher temperatures, 1 billion degrees rather than 150 million degrees Celsius. And helium-3, although stable, is nearly as rare and hard to acquire as tritium. Most commercial sources of it depend on the decay of tritium, typically from military stockpiles.
The cost of bringing helium-3 from the Moon would be colossal for reasons of distance and low concentration. Concentrations are believed to be around 20 to 30 parts per billion in the lunar soil called “regolith.” That implies that a huge amount of lunar surface would have to harvested and processed to extract an amount worth transporting.
The laws of physics make off planet mining in practice impossible because humans live on the surface of a large planet, which is a 'gravity well' - meaning the energy needed to leave and return with helium-3 from the moon or wherever, will rely entirely, and only, on energy from high energy density hydrocarbons, whether synthesised or extracted via fossil fuels.
But fossil fuels are already depleting due to the relentless rise in 'Energy Returned on Energy Invested' (EROEI) i.e. extraction efficiencies are getting ever closer to unity: in the 1940s it took 1 barrel of oil to yield more than 40 or so barrels, now on average globally its down to single figure yield ratios. It's taking ever more energy to extract than is yielded because resource extraction profiles follow the 'low hanging fruit' and 'Hubbert' curves.
So the number of rockets needed to get all the fuel and equipment and sustain people for the years off planet needed to mine the moon – if they can withstand the radiation and keep the dust out of their lungs – would require vast shares of existing but limited fossil fuels. And vast extra quantities of raw minerals, that all require hydrocarbons to mine, process, transport, and manufacture end-use machines. There are 8bn of us only because of high energy density fossil fuels, which supplies c85% of our energy consumption. Who's going to go without to energy so others can mine the moon, whilst hydrocarbons are already fast depleting?
Natasha, there appears to be a lot of effort on your part to look at only the challenges to getting helium-3 fusion power. This is not a proposal for something that will occur tomorrow, and it will be more than a decade from now. Yes, the project is challenging, and yet, if successful will be enough to power humankind's needs for thousands of years. I am not even suggesting that the bankrupt west invest in this, China and Russia have volunteered to do the investing and the work. The west has already made it clear they have no interest in these sorts of projects, with the European Agency recently stating that they will not be among the participants with the Chinese new space station, which by the way also received a lot of "experts" prophesying that China will never accomplish even this task. This is a very important project and if successful will benefit humankind greatly. So why are you seemingly trying to convince people that it is not even worth any effort, especially when it will not even come out of the western people's pocket? The whole 'fusion never dynamic' has changed, the simple reason for this is because now China is investing into fusion, those controlling the funding in the west for fusion were never serious and greatly jeopardized success from fusion projects. Most of the cutting edge science in the west now is owned by the military industrial complex and the work of these scientists are owned by this structure. Anyway Natasha, like I said, China and Russia are going ahead with this and I for one am very happy that they are doing so and wish them nothing but great success in this important endeavor.
Cythia, Please don't misread my motivations to post on your excellent blog post here about my energy research. I am deeply ashamed and disgusted at the colonial history and current behaviour of the 'West' - but that is NOT the point of my engagements here with you, or indeed anywhere in particular.
I am an engineer and maker and repairer of machines, all steps from drawing board to on site fitting and running in several domains - so if I am asked to specify a project - e.g. how to build a replacement to the current fossil fuel energy supply - then I will ask the questions that need asking to achieve such an end result. For example: what will physics allow us to achieve? And: what are the resources limits on a finite planet to build and scale up any particular proposed machine infrastructure?
The world is full of 'magical' thinking about how machines work and are built, which is relentlessly manipulated by psychopathic leaders in industry, politics, entertainment and the media etc. from all over the world. Since my childhood we have been bombarded with fairy tale future promises of flying cars and space ships zipping round the galaxy. But with my engineering and hands on making experience I can see straight through such obvious nonsense.
I am fully aware that China, Russia and India are all global leaders in both fission and fusion nuclear energy deployments and research (and much else additionally too). And I fully support and hope for the best possible outcomes. I support the current efforts by Russia China and India and many other countries to build a multipolar world - and fully expect the criminal 'West' and its disgusting petrol $ global payments reserve currency post Bretton Woods system (and World Bank and IMF frauds etc.) to collapse as fast as possible. But again this is irrelevant to what machines the laws of physics will allow us to build.
My conclusion - with the data I have seen so far (which is why I chose to read you excellent blog post here) - is that fusion is in practice IMPOSSIBLE to scale up beyond a few small experiments - each and every one of which I fully support and wish those so engaged the very best of luck.
I do full understand that the future you paint in your blog post above collapses without fusion power. However hubris can not build a power station to make fertilizer to grow the food, and run my cooker, heating and lighting on, once our one time fossil fuel bonanza is used up.
Please fully and carefully read the links I give in my previous comments – I look forward to a future blog post by your good self detailing what you learn and highlighting any mistakes therein, so we can all improve our shared understanding about how machines are built and work in the real world.
Complexity rears its ugly head at every turn, while simplistic panaceas, such as carbon reduction, only serve to obscure the problem.
Two examples:
Estrogen from birth control pills passes through effluent treatment plants and enters the watershed, and from there, the food chain. What effect does this have on the macro and micro biota that lies in its path? We just don't know, but one thing is certain. No pharmaceutical company will ever finance such an investigation, nor will any institution that relies on that industry for it funding.
Tires. Billions of them. The problem of how mosquitoes are transported internationally in the scrap tire trade is now belatedly understood. What isn't addressed is the millions of tons of synthetic rubber dust that accumulates in the environment from the countless cars rolling down the nation's highways on a daily basis. What effect does this dust have on plant and animal life? Do these molecules mimic signalling proteins essential to life processes? How do they affect the organisms vital to soil fertility? What is their effect on pollinating insects, or predator insects which control undesirable species such as mosquitoes and ants? Do they enter the food chain, and by definition, our own bodies?
Questions unanswered, but let's reduce our carbon footprint because that's all that matters.
The population of the industrialized world is actually in decline, where any growth of population in those nations is entirely attributable to immigration. So, if industrialization leads to declining populations, then it makes sense to industrialize the developing world where most of the population growth is occurring. Of course this stands in the way of the rapacious profits made by exploiting those populations, the benefits of which accrue to the 1% currently wringing their hands over population growth, a portion of which is devoted to misleading the developed world about the actual source of the problem.
When talking about radiation it's important to distinguish between ionizing and non-ionizing. It's also important to consider the range and intensity of both.
Our understanding of the effects of electromagnetic (non-ionizing) radiation on life processes is still incomplete, not just for humans, but for birds, insects and microbiota. Serious questions remain surrounding the effects of high frequency radiation, and yet we charge ahead recklessly with 5 and 6 G communications. A valid question unrelated to the potential effects is quite simply, do we really need such speed, and if so what is it being used for?
I don't want to be exposed to high frequency radiation no matter how weak the dose, if all it's used for is to post pictures of your cat on Facebook or to watch Dancing With The Stars on your cell phone. Enough already. Get your priorities straight people.
"However, upon a closer inspection, we see that in the case of Chernobyl the number of deaths that were clearly attributed to Chernobyl were less than 100, which were directly related to the blast of the accident."
While accurate as far as immediate cause is concerned, this is misleading. If we count the number of people exposed directly (clean-up) or indirectly (proximity) then track their life expectancy relative to base line expectancy for the same population, we have premature deaths in the thousands. The actual numbers range from 1000 to 6000 depending on the methodology and assumptions used in the calculations, but the numbers are by no means insignificant, especially for those affected and their relatives.
Social factors also come into play. I don't know what the social attitude is in Ukraine, but in Japan, being born in Hiroshima or Nagasaki carries with it a social stigma insofar as the potential of birth defects is concerned. This is no doubt grossly exaggerated in the public imagination, but nonetheless still has an influence on people's attitudes, especially where marriage is concerned. I suspect a similar stigma will be attached to people from the Fukushima region.
Incidentally, Fukushima is only 150 km from my wife's family's farm in Niigata. Niigata is famous throughout Japan for its excellent rice. We don't live in Japan, so I can't say if the accident has had an affect on people's attitude toward rice grown in that region, but I can see how it might.
Greatly depicted facts against globalist myths! Thank you so much for this. If someone can still argue against it - must one either be a complete fool or is being "enchanted" by the globalist's agenda with "benefit"?
Before it was "un pc" to say so... John Lennon on that Malthusian myth...
https://twitter.com/historyinmemes/status/1620137447891025920?s=20&t=yCZ8GgJ9Az2ZtI9vIsGnZQ
Wow, major information density presented on the hot button third rail topic of the century! This could be a candidate for substack post of the year, and it's still only January. Got some reading to do now, but as Arnold said in the Terminator, I'll be back.
💕Wage Peace,
⭐️Keep the Faith,
#denaztheplanet!
Good article. Julien Simon may have deserved a tip of the hat, particularly for his successful bet against Paul ‘always wrong’ Ehrlich.
"So why don’t we have nuclear fusion yet?" Because, even the easiest fusion reaction to initiate – the combination of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, to form helium and an energetic neutron – requires a temperature of about 120 million C.
At $30,000 per gram, tritium is almost as precious as a diamond, but for fusion researchers the price is worth it. When tritium is combined at high temperatures with its sibling deuterium, the two gases can burn like the Sun.
But if ITER is ever completed, it will consume most of the world’s tritium, leaving little for reactors that come on line in 2055 or later, which also require tritium to jump start themselves.
Nor is more likely to be made in the future – quite the opposite. Today the world’s only commercial sources are the 19 Canada Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) nuclear reactors, each producing about half a kilogram a year as a waste product. Half of them will retire this decade.
This means the tritium stockpile of about 25 kilograms will peak by 2030 and begin a steady decline as it is sold off and decays.
Plan B would be to breed tritium, but for that you’d need an actual working fusion reactor. As mentioned in the preface above, ITER is a demonstration project to show that fusion is possible, but it won’t produce any power or breed more tritium even when it finally runs in 2035. Meanwhile it will be burning 1 kg of the precious 25 kg remaining. Fusion scientists wishing to fire up reactors after that may find that ITER already drank their milkshake.
Clery D (2022) Out of gas. A shortage of tritium fuel may leave fusion energy with an empty tank. Science 376.
Thank you Natasha, you have reminded me that I should add a paragraph on Helium-3 in this paper. The answer to this dilemma is that there should not be a reliance on tritium but rather Helium-3 for fusion when fusion comes online. Helium-3 is not found in large amounts on earth, however, it is found in ample supply on the moon, which is a focus of China. Helium-3 + Helium-3 = 2 Hydrogens + Helium-4 which generates about 12.9 MeV. Another reaction could be used using Deuterium + Helium-3 = one Hydrogen + Helium-4 which generates about 18.4 MeV. In both reactions the products are such that can be reused in the reaction unlike with Deuterium and Tritium and thus is much more self-sustaining. There is enough Helium-3 on the moon for fusion use on Earth for at least 1000 years. This is why China is making space travel a priority.
Thank you Cynthia. I too have researched nuclear electricity and have lobbied my (UK Green Party) parliamentary representative to support fission, especially the fast breeder route as it can burn up both nuclear bomb 'war-head' plutonium and conventional fission 'waste' - in the UK enough to electrify UK grids for hundreds of years – with the bonus of reducing conventional storage requirements before radiation decays to background levels down from c300,000 years to c300 years.
https://archive.org/details/atomichumanismthecasefornuclearpowerv1/mode/2up
https://djprisss.github.io/Limits-to-Renewable-Energy/
http://www.pelicanweb.org/solisustv18n05page20.html
Some fusion projects propose using deuterium and helium-3 rather than tritium. But that’s very problematic too, they’ll need to run at far higher temperatures, 1 billion degrees rather than 150 million degrees Celsius. And helium-3, although stable, is nearly as rare and hard to acquire as tritium. Most commercial sources of it depend on the decay of tritium, typically from military stockpiles.
https://energyskeptic.com/2022/fusion-may-never-happen-due-to-lack-of-tritium/
The cost of bringing helium-3 from the Moon would be colossal for reasons of distance and low concentration. Concentrations are believed to be around 20 to 30 parts per billion in the lunar soil called “regolith.” That implies that a huge amount of lunar surface would have to harvested and processed to extract an amount worth transporting.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/a235/1283056/
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2021-11-14/another-extraordinary-delusion-mining-helium-from-the-moon/
The laws of physics make off planet mining in practice impossible because humans live on the surface of a large planet, which is a 'gravity well' - meaning the energy needed to leave and return with helium-3 from the moon or wherever, will rely entirely, and only, on energy from high energy density hydrocarbons, whether synthesised or extracted via fossil fuels.
But fossil fuels are already depleting due to the relentless rise in 'Energy Returned on Energy Invested' (EROEI) i.e. extraction efficiencies are getting ever closer to unity: in the 1940s it took 1 barrel of oil to yield more than 40 or so barrels, now on average globally its down to single figure yield ratios. It's taking ever more energy to extract than is yielded because resource extraction profiles follow the 'low hanging fruit' and 'Hubbert' curves.
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2023/02/02/247-the-surplus-energy-economy-part-two/
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9js5291m
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/post-index/
So the number of rockets needed to get all the fuel and equipment and sustain people for the years off planet needed to mine the moon – if they can withstand the radiation and keep the dust out of their lungs – would require vast shares of existing but limited fossil fuels. And vast extra quantities of raw minerals, that all require hydrocarbons to mine, process, transport, and manufacture end-use machines. There are 8bn of us only because of high energy density fossil fuels, which supplies c85% of our energy consumption. Who's going to go without to energy so others can mine the moon, whilst hydrocarbons are already fast depleting?
Natasha, there appears to be a lot of effort on your part to look at only the challenges to getting helium-3 fusion power. This is not a proposal for something that will occur tomorrow, and it will be more than a decade from now. Yes, the project is challenging, and yet, if successful will be enough to power humankind's needs for thousands of years. I am not even suggesting that the bankrupt west invest in this, China and Russia have volunteered to do the investing and the work. The west has already made it clear they have no interest in these sorts of projects, with the European Agency recently stating that they will not be among the participants with the Chinese new space station, which by the way also received a lot of "experts" prophesying that China will never accomplish even this task. This is a very important project and if successful will benefit humankind greatly. So why are you seemingly trying to convince people that it is not even worth any effort, especially when it will not even come out of the western people's pocket? The whole 'fusion never dynamic' has changed, the simple reason for this is because now China is investing into fusion, those controlling the funding in the west for fusion were never serious and greatly jeopardized success from fusion projects. Most of the cutting edge science in the west now is owned by the military industrial complex and the work of these scientists are owned by this structure. Anyway Natasha, like I said, China and Russia are going ahead with this and I for one am very happy that they are doing so and wish them nothing but great success in this important endeavor.
Cythia, Please don't misread my motivations to post on your excellent blog post here about my energy research. I am deeply ashamed and disgusted at the colonial history and current behaviour of the 'West' - but that is NOT the point of my engagements here with you, or indeed anywhere in particular.
I am an engineer and maker and repairer of machines, all steps from drawing board to on site fitting and running in several domains - so if I am asked to specify a project - e.g. how to build a replacement to the current fossil fuel energy supply - then I will ask the questions that need asking to achieve such an end result. For example: what will physics allow us to achieve? And: what are the resources limits on a finite planet to build and scale up any particular proposed machine infrastructure?
The world is full of 'magical' thinking about how machines work and are built, which is relentlessly manipulated by psychopathic leaders in industry, politics, entertainment and the media etc. from all over the world. Since my childhood we have been bombarded with fairy tale future promises of flying cars and space ships zipping round the galaxy. But with my engineering and hands on making experience I can see straight through such obvious nonsense.
I am fully aware that China, Russia and India are all global leaders in both fission and fusion nuclear energy deployments and research (and much else additionally too). And I fully support and hope for the best possible outcomes. I support the current efforts by Russia China and India and many other countries to build a multipolar world - and fully expect the criminal 'West' and its disgusting petrol $ global payments reserve currency post Bretton Woods system (and World Bank and IMF frauds etc.) to collapse as fast as possible. But again this is irrelevant to what machines the laws of physics will allow us to build.
My conclusion - with the data I have seen so far (which is why I chose to read you excellent blog post here) - is that fusion is in practice IMPOSSIBLE to scale up beyond a few small experiments - each and every one of which I fully support and wish those so engaged the very best of luck.
I do full understand that the future you paint in your blog post above collapses without fusion power. However hubris can not build a power station to make fertilizer to grow the food, and run my cooker, heating and lighting on, once our one time fossil fuel bonanza is used up.
Please fully and carefully read the links I give in my previous comments – I look forward to a future blog post by your good self detailing what you learn and highlighting any mistakes therein, so we can all improve our shared understanding about how machines are built and work in the real world.
Where is everybody? This should a busy site!
Complexity rears its ugly head at every turn, while simplistic panaceas, such as carbon reduction, only serve to obscure the problem.
Two examples:
Estrogen from birth control pills passes through effluent treatment plants and enters the watershed, and from there, the food chain. What effect does this have on the macro and micro biota that lies in its path? We just don't know, but one thing is certain. No pharmaceutical company will ever finance such an investigation, nor will any institution that relies on that industry for it funding.
Tires. Billions of them. The problem of how mosquitoes are transported internationally in the scrap tire trade is now belatedly understood. What isn't addressed is the millions of tons of synthetic rubber dust that accumulates in the environment from the countless cars rolling down the nation's highways on a daily basis. What effect does this dust have on plant and animal life? Do these molecules mimic signalling proteins essential to life processes? How do they affect the organisms vital to soil fertility? What is their effect on pollinating insects, or predator insects which control undesirable species such as mosquitoes and ants? Do they enter the food chain, and by definition, our own bodies?
Questions unanswered, but let's reduce our carbon footprint because that's all that matters.
The population of the industrialized world is actually in decline, where any growth of population in those nations is entirely attributable to immigration. So, if industrialization leads to declining populations, then it makes sense to industrialize the developing world where most of the population growth is occurring. Of course this stands in the way of the rapacious profits made by exploiting those populations, the benefits of which accrue to the 1% currently wringing their hands over population growth, a portion of which is devoted to misleading the developed world about the actual source of the problem.
When talking about radiation it's important to distinguish between ionizing and non-ionizing. It's also important to consider the range and intensity of both.
https://biologydictionary.net/ionizing-radiation/
https://biologydictionary.net/non-ionizing-radiation/
Our understanding of the effects of electromagnetic (non-ionizing) radiation on life processes is still incomplete, not just for humans, but for birds, insects and microbiota. Serious questions remain surrounding the effects of high frequency radiation, and yet we charge ahead recklessly with 5 and 6 G communications. A valid question unrelated to the potential effects is quite simply, do we really need such speed, and if so what is it being used for?
I don't want to be exposed to high frequency radiation no matter how weak the dose, if all it's used for is to post pictures of your cat on Facebook or to watch Dancing With The Stars on your cell phone. Enough already. Get your priorities straight people.
"However, upon a closer inspection, we see that in the case of Chernobyl the number of deaths that were clearly attributed to Chernobyl were less than 100, which were directly related to the blast of the accident."
While accurate as far as immediate cause is concerned, this is misleading. If we count the number of people exposed directly (clean-up) or indirectly (proximity) then track their life expectancy relative to base line expectancy for the same population, we have premature deaths in the thousands. The actual numbers range from 1000 to 6000 depending on the methodology and assumptions used in the calculations, but the numbers are by no means insignificant, especially for those affected and their relatives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_disaster
Social factors also come into play. I don't know what the social attitude is in Ukraine, but in Japan, being born in Hiroshima or Nagasaki carries with it a social stigma insofar as the potential of birth defects is concerned. This is no doubt grossly exaggerated in the public imagination, but nonetheless still has an influence on people's attitudes, especially where marriage is concerned. I suspect a similar stigma will be attached to people from the Fukushima region.
Incidentally, Fukushima is only 150 km from my wife's family's farm in Niigata. Niigata is famous throughout Japan for its excellent rice. We don't live in Japan, so I can't say if the accident has had an affect on people's attitude toward rice grown in that region, but I can see how it might.
Manufactured Landscapes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WdYLkj37Vk